Experience and the Ranks

[Old Crusty]

   In my experience with the game, the player experience and ranks needs a lot of work. 

   Two reasons for this. Once you can sail a Bellona, experience comes quickly and so do the next couple of ranks and all of a sudden before you know it, you are at maximum experience. The other reason is that the current rank system makes it so you can skip over a lot of ships without ever needing to sail them. For example the current system you can skip the Frigate/Belle Poule and then a rank later completely skip all 4rh rates. Currently a new player will spend triple the time grinding to sail a big 5th rate, then they will grinding from that 5th rate to maximum game experience. And if those new players complete the tutorial and final exam, it takes even less time to get to maximum experience and sailing the biggest 1st rate in game.

I propose adding two additional ranks and almost doubling the experience needed to get to maximum. This is a rough draft.

1.  Crew 40     0 Exp                                                     2.  Crew 60     300 exp                                                3.  Crew 120   600 exp                                          4.  Crew 160   1200 exp.                                        5.  Crew 240   2500 exp.                                        6.  Crew 300   4500 exp.                                               7.  Crew 400   8000 exp.                                          8.  Crew 500   15000 exp.                                     9.  Crew 650   25000 exp.                                    10. Crew 850  50000 exp.                                     11. Crew 1100 75000 exp.                                   12. Crew 1400 150000 exp.

   while writing out these ranks I thought that maybe adding a thirteenth rank would be good so that someone sailing a Santisima could have a Frigate or two in fleet to help prevent being jumped by smaller ships and stern camped.

   All thoughts on this matter, positive and negative, are greatly appreciated.

Old Crusty 

[Old Crusty]

Well, that chart does not look like the way I typed it and I don’t know how to fix it. Sorry

[Angus MacDuff]

I have a problem with the promotion to M&C if you complete the final exam.  You have no experience to go out on OW with 250 crew.  On the other hand you are easy meat for the wolves.  your suggestion makes perfect sense otherwise.  I found the grind up from zero to be very important to my learning curve and I agree with you that you need to spend more time in the intermediate ranks before you sail the big boys.  You might consider that crew size by rank should relate to a class of ship.  For instance the 5th rates have several classes within them.

[RaimundoJoe]

34 minutes ago, Old Crusty said:

   In my experience with the game, the player experience and ranks needs a lot of work. 

   Two reasons for this. Once you can sail a Bellona, experience comes quickly and so do the next couple of ranks and all of a sudden before you know it, you are at maximum experience. The other reason is that the current rank system makes it so you can skip over a lot of ships without ever needing to sail them. For example the current system you can skip the Frigate/Belle Poule and then a rank later completely skip all 4rh rates. Currently a new player will spend triple the time grinding to sail a big 5th rate, then they will grinding from that 5th rate to maximum game experience. And if those new players complete the tutorial and final exam, it takes even less time to get to maximum experience and sailing the biggest 1st rate in game.

I propose adding two additional ranks and almost doubling the experience needed to get to maximum. This is a rough draft.

1.  Crew 40     0 Exp                                                    
2.  Crew 60     300 exp                                                
3.  Crew 120   600 exp                                        
4.  Crew 160   1200 exp.                                        
5.  Crew 240   2500 exp.                                        
6.  Crew 300   4500 exp.                                              
7.  Crew 400   8000 exp.                                          
8.  Crew 500   15000 exp.                                    
9.  Crew 650   25000 exp.                                    
10. Crew 850  50000 exp.                                    
11. Crew 1100 75000 exp.                                  
12. Crew 1400 150000 exp.

while writing out these ranks I thought that maybe adding a thirteenth rank would be good so that someone sailing a Santisima could have a Frigate or two in fleet to help prevent being jumped by smaller ships and stern camped.

   All thoughts on this matter, positive and negative, are greatly appreciated.

Old Crusty 

 

[Tiedemann]

I like the idea of having a separated PvP ranking hierarchy, that could be connected to flags and banners on the ships in battle. So PvE players with 0 PvP experience/ranks would only sail with their nations flag in Battle, no banners or anything else. While more experienced players with PvP ranks would have more banners representing each PvP rank they have.

Only intention of the system would be to make it easier to see if the player your fighting is novice or experienced, and I know some players have a real hard on for flags. so it might please those players..

Could also be an idea to represent the number of slots a player has on a ship, with banners/flags etc, but I don't like the idea of making the PvE grind for more crew harder. Many players come join this game for sailing the Surprise, Victory, Santissima but leave because the PvE grind is just to time consuming.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Tiedemann

[Angus MacDuff]

2 minutes ago, Tiedemann said:

I like the idea of having a separated PvP ranking hierarchy, that could be connected to flags and banners on the ships in battle. So PvE players with 0 PvP experience/ranks would only sail with their nations flag in Battle, no banners or anything else. While more experienced players with PvP ranks would have more banners representing each PvP rank they have.

Only intention of the system would be to make it easier to see if the player your fighting is novice or experienced, and I know some players have a real hard on for flags. so it might please those players..  

 

The issue there is PVP mark farming and seal clubbing.  There are several routes to take in the PVP world that probably should not give out prizes for honour.  If you are earning your PVP rank based on difficulty of the battle, then honours would have been earned.  Not just for the accumulation of marks.

[Jack Spencer]

Quote from a previous post (Experience Points XP)

"For me the XP is a very confusing and often misleading determination of combat experience and ability under fire.

For example, I currently have the rank of Captain (Post Captain) which means I have earned 10,000 XP and can manage 400 crew and sail a Trin.

About 80% of my XP comes from fishing, trading, exploring = 8000 XP

About 10% comes from Missions against AI = 1000 XP

About 10% comes from actual PvP combat = 1000 XP

So my conclusion is that I have only 2000 XP in actual combat (if you want to count the mission AI), a First Lieutenant rank and I should only be sailing 6th rates in combat.

I seems to me that OW sailing XP should be a separate ranking from a combat XP ranking."

[Palatinose]

How about incentives to perform longer in certain ranks? Like getting special boni for fulfilling diffenrent tasks inside these ranks, e.g. sailing diffenrent ships of  a class (sinking enemy vessel in snow, brig, reno, etc..). Imo the longer you need to get to the last rank, the better. Most of the experience in the game is not decided by the amount of crew one can command. 

[Tiedemann]

Just now, Palatinose said:

How about incentives to perform longer in certain ranks? Like getting special boni for fulfilling diffenrent tasks inside these ranks, e.g. sailing diffenrent ships of  a class (sinking enemy vessel in snow, brig, reno, etc..). Imo the longer you need to get to the last rank, the better. Most of the experience in the game is not decided by the amount of crew one can command. 

Could give a slot grinding boost for the ships best suited for you current rank..

[Palatinose]

Just now, Tiedemann said:

Could give a slot grinding boost for the ships best suited for you current rank..

why not. complete the task to sink enemy 5th rate in a renomee and you get one week of bonus xp in that ship. I'm so uncreative when it comes to pve content, please help fellas

[Angus MacDuff]

6 minutes ago, Palatinose said:

How about incentives to perform longer in certain ranks? Like getting special boni for fulfilling diffenrent tasks inside these ranks, e.g. sailing diffenrent ships of  a class (sinking enemy vessel in snow, brig, reno, etc..). Imo the longer you need to get to the last rank, the better. Most of the experience in the game is not decided by the amount of crew one can command. 

Rank based compulsory missions?  Not a bad idea.  There really is two paths to the top in this game...PVP or PVE.  You can achieve the highest rank having never faced another player.  Perhaps we need "Admiral of the Red" and Admiral of the Blue".  I would hesitate to require PVP success for promotion.

[Tiedemann]

6 minutes ago, Oberon74 said:

The issue there is PVP mark farming and seal clubbing.  There are several routes to take in the PVP world that probably should not give out prizes for honour.  If you are earning your PVP rank based on difficulty of the battle, then honours would have been earned.  Not just for the accumulation of marks.

The PvP ranking system could be based on kills, assists or damage, but it would only give symbolic flags/banners in battle. It's not like it would give you a real benefit, it's just for show. 

So if a player alt farm/seal club his way up through the PvP ranks it would be like peeing on his leg to keep warm during a real winter. When fighting against other players with equal rank but real experience the farmer/seal clubber would most likely just embarrass him/her self.    

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, Tiedemann said:

The PvP ranking system could be based on kills, assists or damage, but it would only give symbolic flags/banners in battle. It's not like it would give you a real benefit, it's just for show. 

So if a player alt farm/seal club his way up through the PvP ranks it would be like peeing on his leg to keep warm during a real winter. When fighting against other players with equal rank but real experience the farmer/seal clubber would most likely just embarrass him/her self.    

And receive brutal feedback on Global Chat!

[Palatinose]

2 minutes ago, Oberon74 said:

I would hesitate to require PVP success for promotion.

Enemy vessel does not specifically exclude AI. 

[z4ys]

17 minutes ago, Jack Spencer said:

Quote from a previous post (Experience Points XP)

"For me the XP is a very confusing and often misleading determination of combat experience and ability under fire.

For example, I currently have the rank of Captain (Post Captain) which means I have earned 10,000 XP and can manage 400 crew and sail a Trin.

About 80% of my XP comes from fishing, trading, exploring = 8000 XP

About 10% comes from Missions against AI = 1000 XP

About 10% comes from actual PvP combat = 1000 XP

So my conclusion is that I have only 2000 XP in actual combat (if you want to count the mission AI), a First Lieutenant rank and I should only be sailing 6th rates in combat.

I seems to me that OW sailing XP should be a separate ranking from a combat XP ranking."

Many real captains never saw action but climbed through the ranks

[Palatinose]

In general: secondary quests. There is plenty of players that reach the highest rank, get their first 1st rate and then quit. We could argue those guys won't fit in this game anyways but there has to be more than just dull combat missions. I'm looking foreward to the patch, could really get interesting.

[Angus MacDuff]

3 minutes ago, Palatinose said:

Enemy vessel does not specifically exclude AI. 

I understood that, but it comes back to PVE ranks vs PVP ranks.  A player who ranks up solely against AI is not in the same playing field as a predominantly PVP player.  I'm just thinking there is a need for two different ranking systems.  Tiedemann's idea of Visual (only) PVP rewards may have the most merit.  At the end of the day, so what if youre an Admiral with no PVP experience.  If you go out in OW...you'll Git Gud.

[z4ys]

flaw of the game is: dmg = gold = xp. The more dmg the more gold the more xp. nobody will sail a ship that has shitty guns for its class just because its all about max dmg. Player gets more reward the bigger the ship is. Therefore everyone rushed to max rank because more reward.

I saw many new players that were just rushing through ranks. In the end they had no clue how to sail a 1st rate or any other ship. They sunk it within the first few battles while fighting against player attacking other in their carezone and called the game shit.

As long more guns mean more everything nothing will change. Rush rush rush skip as many as possible.

[Old Crusty]

12 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

If the grind activities were varied and good stuff I'd say "maybe".

However, they arent. And the overall grind for the game is one of the main causes of complaints when people review the game.

The complaints about the grind from new players goes hand in hand with being ganked while on that grind. The ships being ganked the vast majority of the time are 5th rates and smaller. Currently the grinds keeps you in those ships much longer than the bigger ships. 

   That problem with new players brings us back to a safe place for players to do missions which has been talked about repeatedly and a subject for other posts.

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

The complaints about the grind I chuckle at. They don't know how bad the grind was before. There needs to be however another means to earn experience that creates interest and breaks down the mundain consecutive actions the game currently is to rank up.

[Old Crusty]

22 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

Ask players to sail with you. This is MMO game and SOLs shouldn't sail alone.

There are times that we want to move our ship from one port to another and we have used our tow or do not have an outpost where we are going. Sometimes it is very early or very late and there is nobody available to sail with you. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

Remember @admin has mention that upon release of the game they will add I think up to 5 more ranks to the game.   Which makes me think they will do this to add more crew so you can fleet with your AI if needed.   Though I just like the extra crew so I don't need as much rum when out grinding before I return to port.

[Macjimm]

I've  been sailing for years and recently became a Lt.  The way I see it, I can enjoy lots more of NA and look forward to promotions for many years to come.

[Palatinose]

10 hours ago, Macjimm said:

I've  been sailing for years and recently became a Lt.  The way I see it, I can enjoy lots more of NA and look forward to promotions for many years to come.

What's Lt.? You want to tell me you have many hours in ths game and are a - let's assume - Lieutenant Commander (or even lower)? How is that possible? You need 5000xp for Master and Commander rank. You get that alone by sailing.

[Macjimm]

4 hours ago, Palatinose said:

What's Lt.? You want to tell me you have many hours in ths game and are a - let's assume - Lieutenant Commander (or even lower)? How is that possible? You need 5000xp for Master and Commander rank. You get that alone by sailing.

First Lieutenant.  Hundreds of hours.  I fish and trade, mostly locally.  Players get  more XP from combat than trading.  I don't play every day and sessions are rarely more than a couple hours.    I'm not in a hurry and enjoy sailing.   Sailing doesn't yield much XP.   I really like the slow pace .